Articles related to Oncology, Radiation

The results, presented during the virtual ESMO Congress 2021, will substantially change the population of patients with melanoma who undergo treatment in the adjuvant setting, according to Jason J. Luke, MD: “Patients with stage IIB/C melanoma have similar rates of recurrence and melanoma specific survival to those with stage IIIA/B disease. Despite this, adjuvant anti-PD-1 immunotherapy has only been available in standard practice for stage III disease. The results of KEYNOTE-716 will facilitate access to anti-PD-1 for stage IIB/C patients and, in a sense, level the playing field against melanoma.”

Dr. Kenneth Grossmann commented after presenting the results at the ASCO Annual Meeting in June: “The overall survival impact of pembrolizumab was likely influenced by effective post-relapse treatment, with standard-of-care patients receiving PD-1 blockade.” Dr. Grossmann then concluded that “single-agent anti-PD-1 antibody treatment should be a standard-of-care option for adjuvant treatment of high-risk resected melanoma,” and offered that the OS “trend of benefit is there.”

Lead author of the study, Dr. Ana Maria Arance, who presented the results over the summer at the ASCO Annual Meeting, commented: “With additional follow-up, lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab continues to show clinically meaningful, durable responses in patients with advanced melanoma with confirmed progression on a PD-1 or PD-L1 inhibitor given alone or in combination. These data support lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab as a potential regimen for this population of high unmet need.”

Second-line therapy with pembrolizumab plus gemcitabine, vinorelbine, and liposomal doxorubicin (pembro-GVD) is a highly effective and well-tolerated regimen that can efficiently bridge patients with rel/ref cHL to high-dose therapy and autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation (HDT/AHCT).

The encouraging results of the phase 3 ORIENT-11 trial, which included 397 patients with previously untreated, locally advanced metastatic non-squamous NSCLC without sensitizing EGFR or ALK aberrations, were published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology.

Studies suggest that G12C mutations occur in 3% to 8% of total colorectal cancer (CRC) cases and constitute 6% to 17% of KRAS mutations. Having a G12C mutation may be an adverse prognostic factor in mCRC, but confounding factors may be more responsible for differences in treatment outcomes than the G12C mutation itself. The two conflicting presentations at the ESMO World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer highlight the critical need to define the prognostic significance of the G12C mutation and the resulting treatment implications more precisely.